Chang-Rae Lee: Literary Hero or Just Another Exploiter? | Asian American Issues

o Asian American male has ever enjoyed the kind of approval lavished on Chang-Rae Lee by the American literary establishment.

     But then no American novelist has ever loaded such mind-blowing guilt trips on his Asian male protagonists. Naturally even those AA readers who amply appreciate Lee's luminous, high-bandwidth prose come to wonder if there isn't some connection between the accolades and the deplorable moral profile of Lee's AM characters.

     In his first novel Native Speaker (Riverhead 1995) the narrator is Corean American Henry Park who has built a career with a shadowy private multinational intelligence firm by spying on notable Asians. This creepy professional life jeopardizes Park's marriage to a WASP princess, alienates him from society at large and, on some metaphysical plane, brings about the death of his young son. Park's no stereotypical Asian male in the conventional sense, but he does evoke not so subtley the stereotypical suspicion that Asian men are given to sneakiness, double-allegiance and profound social alienation. The effort earned Lee the PEN/Hemingway Award and the American Book Award, not to mention the prestigious job of director of the MFA program at CUNY's Hunter College.

     Lee's second novel A Gesture Life (1999) ups the angst ante. Turns out elderly narrator Franklin Hata had been, in a dim distant past, an officer in the Japanese Imperial Army who played a role in the deaths of two young Corean comfort women. The man's not exactly a monster but the skeletons in his closet aren't of the wholesome all-American variety either. The moral burden of Hata's past keeps him from cementing a promising relationship with an eligible widow -- not to mention developing a normal relationship with his adoptive daughter. AA readers might be excused for being flabbergasted at the sheer randomness of saddling the protagonist of an AA novel with the guilt of WWII sex slaves. The novel elicited high praise from the NY Times's Michiko Kakutani and won Lee a secure place among America's most promising young writers.

     The protagonists of both novels find redemption -- or at least the hope thereof. But the bleakness of their predicaments hardly advance the Asian American male quest for recognition as feeling, well-adjusted human beings. Instead, Lee's novels seem to confirm that, hell, yes, there are good reasons why Asian men can never fit comfortably into American life.

     That dark view finds little support in the outlines of Lee's own life.

     Chang-Rae Lee was born in Seoul, Corea on July 29, 1965. His family emigrated when he was either two or three, depending on source. He grew up in Westchester, New York and attended New Hampshire's elite Phillips Exeter Academy. He graduated Yale with an English B.A., then went to the University of Oregon for a masters in creative writing. A year as a Wall Street analyst convinced Lee to commit to a full-time writing career. In addition to his two novels, Lee has published stories and articles in The New Yorker, The New York Times and Granta magazine. He now lives in New Jersey with his wife and daughter.

  &nb Does Chang-Rae Lee's literary success expand possibilities for Asian American men? Or is he merely exploiting and reinforcing existing stereotypes?

CONTINUED BELOW

WHAT YOU SAY

[This page is closed to new input. Vote and continue this and related discussions at the new Interactive Area. --Ed.]

A Gesture Life was a delight to read. Yes it was!
andy
Tuesday, January 08, 2002 at 20:49:00 (PST)

just a question:

did anyone who read "a gesture life" actually relate to the book? the book was great for entertainment, but it almost felt like reading a book written by a white person depicting an asian person's life. i could not relate at all.

on the other hand, many people put down amy tan for exploiting asian culture and being a sellout. i remember reading joy-luck club in 7th grade, however, and thinking that it was the first book that had characters that i could relate to as an asian-american. a friend mentioned this--and i think it's true--a white person would never have been able to write a story like that. a white person would not be able to touch on the same things.

in a gesture life, the main character seemed to have the characterics that a white person would believe and expect an asian man to have. the book played on white stereotypes of asians.

does anyone agree?
penelope
Tuesday, January 08, 2002 at 15:22:25 (PST)

I'm an female of African descent who read Native Speaker because it got great reviews. However, I was very disappointed at the end of the book because I was left wanting. Unlike the editors I found Henry Park's character to be a sterotypical Asian male. It was the WASP wife who cheated on him and then later forced him to open up. I didn't by the story and the writing was not unique. If readers want an excellent work of fiction read "Fixer Chao" by Han Ong (I find myself laughing on the NYC subways). An excellent work of non-fiction is "Catfish and Mandala" (Couldn't put it down and hope that he writes other books) by Andrew Pham. Just my 2 cents.
CrzySxyCool
csc9@cornell.edu Tuesday, January 08, 2002 at 06:45:44 (PST)

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Stop ripping the guy. Any positive recognition towards Asian males is a big plus, so long as we're not portrayed as the nunchucks wielding kung-fu fighter.
EC
Monday, January 07, 2002 at 16:32:03 (PST)

I read and enjoyed "Native Speaker." I have not read "A Gesture Life," but this column begs the question: Since when is it ANY writer's duty regardless of their racial origin to "advance (anyone's) quest for recognition as feeling, well-adjusted human beings."
The idea that a writer (or musician or poet or artist) has some sort of duty to act as a public relations firm for an entire ethnic group is absurd. Philip Roth and Norman Mailer took the same kind of ill-informed, self-righteous crap from fellow Jews for their early works.
Lee has no duty except to be true to himself as a writer. Period. His characters are no more stereotyped than John Updike's angst-ridden adulterous suburban white men.

Lit fan
average_guy26@yahoo.com Monday, January 07, 2002 at 11:15:00 (PST)

Just another Asian author willing to write what Americans (mostly white) WANT to hear.

Makes sense though since with Asians are a very small minority in America (despite having a high literacy rate), we don't do most of the reading (or writing either) around here.

I am sure there are asian american novelists out there who give a more fair portrayal of Asians in literature -- but they just cannot make it big--precisely because thats not what the public feels like reading -- or at least its not what "they" want the public to read.

Don't worry I am not a conspiracy theorist but this is a trend in current literature from all authors. Crap like "The Bear and the Dragon" by Tom Clancy portaying the Chinese as conniving terrorists, "Rising Sun" by Michael Crichton where Asian men are repugnant womanizers who lust after white women---not to mention the well known classics such as Madame Butterfly, Joy Luck Club, The Butcher's wife, etc.

True that Asians are the noblest of peoples. But for heaven's sake, stop jackhammering the negatives about asians into the public. How about portraying some positive such a strong asian character (male or female) who actually has a good warm relationship (hopefully heterosexual) with another strong asian character who do not rely on some white person(s) to save the day. But I guess such people don't exist in America.

I personally have had enough of this long one-way guilt-shame-angst trip the media is giving all asians today. I think it is even more deplorable that Chang Rae Lee is so willing to exploit such negativity to appeal to the "mass market".
An Avid Reader
Saturday, January 05, 2002 at 22:47:50 (PST)

I've read Native Speaker. I wasn't exactly impressed by the book, technical or literary. I'm not a literary critic so maybe I'm just not sensitive to the nuances of fine literature. We are bombarded with books about the angst of growing up as an asian american female but we have very little literature from the asian american male's viewpoint. I read Native Speaker for that reason, looking for insight from the male's viewpoint and saw very little. You don't get very much information about the protagonist relationship with his father which I thought was very interesting because I feel your sense of identity as an asian american (which I think the protangonist was struggling with, his estranged relationship with his caucasion wife, his biracial son) is affected by your understanding of the relationship with your father (parents). I think Lee was trying to kill two birds with one stone -explore identity and write a suspense, investigative novel. He missed because the exploration of identity is wanting and the plot was interesting but vague- you don't exactly know who all the characters are.
disappointed
Saturday, January 05, 2002 at 10:02:37 (PST)

I havn't read his novels so I'm not a good critic. However, I don't think his literary "success" will expand or limit Asian American men's possibilities. Most people have never heard of him. From what is described on Goldsea however, the books don't seem too bad.
Thomas
Friday, January 04, 2002 at 20:41:16 (PST)

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